That was my Dad. Ate, smoked and drank anything he wanted -- and it killed
him pretty "young" (by modern standards) at age 74.
But, he *did* avoid spending his last years curled in the fetal position, as
his mother sadly did not. She lived to 93, but spent her last several
years in a coma -- a fate my Dad was determined to avoid.
Sorry to hear about your ma. It is a shame that she had to suffer and
also that your dad past away so young as you've said (by modern
standards) at age 74.
My granddad lived in the "third world" country eating homegrown/farm
raised food and smoking tobacco that he grew. There's something to be
said about organically grown/raised food huh? We, here in the US, are
consuming factory raised chicken, beef... canned food, food with a
bunch of additives that we can't even pronounce. The cigarettes are
laced with ingredients to enhance flavor, to keep it burning
unattended...blah blah blah. All of these advances in science is
killing us.
Thailand, my granddad's part of Thailand, has been eating, smoking and
basically living the same way for the past four five thousand years.
Until only about eight-ten years ago did my granddad's farm had
plumbing, trucks, electricity...etc. When I left, we didn't even have
oil lamp, we gathered sap from a particular tree, mixed it with
crumbled dried out "mulch" looking pieces of wood, rolled them into two
feet long 1.5" round logs wrapped in dried banana leave. That was our
lantern.
My granddad was alert and kicking 'til the day he past away. I think
he just decided that it was enough. About seven or eight years ago, he
decided to go down to the edge of our farm and cut/pull weed around the
fence line. He contracted meat eating virus some how and lost about
four lbs of his left calf. It slowed him down a lot and he didn't like
that. Last time I went to visit him '03 I put him in a cart and pulled
him with a scooter for a ride around the farm. Below are a couple of
pictures of the old goat and our tobacco farm on the bank of the Mekong
river.
http://tinypic.com/view/?pic=jrwpyp
http://tinypic.com/view/?pic=jrwo7r
Shortly after I came back to the US, he past away. I think he held out
long enough for me to visit one last time. Tough old goat he was.
The Monk